System and method for determining periods of interest in home of persons living independently

A system and method for monitoring the activities of a resident living independently to distinguish normal activity from unusual activity. A variety of sensors distributed around the home collect data on activity in the home. The data is communicated to a remote monitoring center and collated in a database according to applicable time slots. The time slots for a twenty-four hour cycle are at least three and can be as many as forty-eight or more. Historical activity time lines are created and a buffer time is added to and offset from the maximum historical activity time line. If a new data point comes in that exceeds both the maximum historical activity time line and the buffer time, an alert is issued indicating the activity is unusual.